Jets running back LaDainian Tomlinson apparently holds the key to having a solid NFL Sunday performance while helping his team to victory. Spend the night on a hospital bench after staying up all night the day before, then drive to your team meetings, then drive back to the hospital and then drive to the stadium to play.

That’s the timeline for Tomlinson, as recounted in the NY Daily News, when his wife, Torsha, had the couple’s second baby (and first girl), Dayah Lynn Tomlinson, at 9:16 a.m. on Sept. 10, the day before the Jets season opener.

After having the baby, Torsha spent another night in the hospital, so her husband did as well, sleeping on a bench with a cushion.

Tomlinson then drove to his meetings Sunday morning, and because Torsha had been released from the hospital -- and because Tomlinson insisted that he be the one to drive home his new baby girl and his wife – he had to return to the hospital a few hours before gametime. Then, drive home. Then, drive back to work.

In the Jets win, Tomlinson recorded a team-high six catches for 73 yards, so obviously he did something right the two nights before the game.

Said Torsha: “I was very proud of him. He showed up on Sunday in more ways than one.”

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The Jets have announced that RB Shonn Greene won’t play Sunday vs. the Bengals because he has a skin infection on his right foot.

Stemming from that declaration, the big question would be: is it a staph infection, which, of course, would not be good news? The team, via the Newark Star Ledger, said it’s unknown because skin infections can’t be cultured.

Either way, the Jets feel confident they caught the infection in time and that the use of antibiotics should make the problem go away.

Posted by Andy BenoitThe New York Jets are having player-run practices during these locked out days. Attending these player-run practices is soon-to-be third-down running back LaDainian Tomlinson. The future Hall of Famer told the media on Tuesday that at this stage of his career, he is fine with a role constricted to coming off the bench in passing down situations.

“Now at the end of my career, I’d love to be best third down back,” Tomlinson said, via Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. He specifically acknowledged that third-year pro Shonn Greene is ready to assume the starting role.

Tomlinson wasn’t the only Jets running back talking Tuesday. Joe McKnight was asked about the team’s selection of running back Bilal Powell in the fourth round of this past weekend’s draft. “I was pissed and motivated at the same time,” McKnight, the team’s third-rounder last year, said.

What’s interesting is Powell’s presence means that either Tomlinson or McKnight likely won’t be around in 2011.

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Rex Ryan has got to be the most entertaining coach in the NFL today, but he’s also proven he can, you know, coach pretty well, too. His quarterback, Mark Sanchez, has been fairly mediocre the past two seasons (he ranked 16th last season in passing yards, 19th in touchdowns, 27th in passer rating and 29th in completion percentage . . . but No. 1 in rumored romances with 17-year-olds!) and he was entering the season with a RB in LaDainian Tomlinson that had been left for dead by San Diego and another RB in Shonn Greene that only had 108 carries in his career.

While the offense didn’t finish in the top-10, though the running game was No. 4, the defense was, once again, spectacular. Yes, there were some disastrous games in there – ahem, the 45-3 destruction of New York by the Patriots after Ryan had talked all kinds of trash to coach Bill Belichick – but for the second-straight season, the Jets made the AFC championship game.

That’s not a terrible place to be.

Obviously, the quarterback position needs better production. Sanchez is barely passable in this position (get it?!), and he’s lucky he has such a strong run game and a defense that can make his win-loss percentage look pretty outstanding. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that the Jets could win a Super Bowl with Sanchez in charge, it just seems much more likely if he could develop into a top-10 QB.

1. Second cornerbackSo, how does Nnamdi Asomugha sound in that spot? Fantastic, but pretty unlikely, I think. Antonio Cromartie possibly could return to the squad and he was more than solid for much of the year (he did have a couple awful performances, though), especially when Revis was injured. Perhaps, Kyle Wilson – the first-round pick from 2010 – will be ready to take his place after a relatively anonymous rookie year. But Revis really wants Cromartie to return, and he doesn’t seem to have great confidence in Wilson.

2. Defensive LineA few days ago, an ESPN analyst ripped the front-three of the Jets and said the defensive success the past few years was “smoke and mirrors” and “bells and whistles.” We think that’s pretty unfair to a guy like Mike DeVito, coming off the best year of his career. But NT Sione Pouha is 32 years old, Shaun Ellis is 33 and the Jets already released Kris Jenkins and Jason Taylor. In Ryan’s defense, the nose tackle is one of the most important positions on the field, meaning he’ll have to find somebody who can compete against Pouha for the starting job and, barring that, can at least provide more depth.

3. Right TackleApparently the Jets feel good enough about Vladimir Ducasse at right tackle, because they (sort of surprisingly) cut Damien Woody. It’s hard to tell how New York got to that analysis of Ducasse, who admitted that he struggled to learn the playbook last year and couldn’t win the left guard spot at the beginning of the season.

Ryan already has said the Jets will win the Super Bowl next year, and considering they’ve fallen only a game short the past two years, anything less than an appearance in Indianapolis next season will be a real disappointment. Assuming the Jets defense remains a top-five unit – and they probably should – Sanchez continues to improve and Ryan keeps his team stocked with g------ snacks, expect another deep playoff run. And, quite possibly, a Super Bowl appearance.

Braylon Edwards’ DWI case is adjourned until May. His attorney needs more time to try to get certain bits of evidence excluded. Edwards’ case was already adjourned once in November and again in January. He was arrested in September. The legal system’s absurd leisureliness once again shines brightest on the highest profile cases…

LaDainian Tomlinson has a year left on his two-year contract with the Jets. However, he has not received any definitive assurance that he’ll be back in 2011.

“Part of it really does suck,” Tomlinson told Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. “It really does for me. To be in limbo… sometimes, I just want to say, ‘You know what? I’m just going to retire.’”

“It’s kind of a messed up feeling to be in,” he said about being in limbo. “Because I feel like we had a great season. Things went well. But here there’s questions about whether I’m going to come back (with the one) year that I have left (on my contract). So who knows.”

Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum said the club expects Tomlinson to be back, but he also acknowledged that “these things could change”.

Tomlinson, 31, is slated to earn $2.4 million in 2011. He rushed for 914 yards last season and added 368 more through the air. However, he tailed off as the season progressed, rushing for less than 60 yards in each of the final 10 games.

Following the Jets loss Sunday, New York fans were displeased with offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s play-calling, especially considering the team failed to gain two yards – and a touchdown – in four plays with the team down by 14.

You know that the Jets were stuffed on fourth-and-one on a straight run up the middle by LaDainian Tomlinson, and that continues to make fans rather upset. Heck, even coach Rex Ryan second-guessed some of the play-calling, particularly the attempted passes on second and third down at the end of that drive.

That, however, doesn’t mean Ryan is relieving Schottenheimer of his duties. Because he’s not.

“If we had the benefit of hindsight, we should have probably just ran Shonn Greene or (LaDainian Tomlinson) four straight times,” Ryan said, via the Newark Star Ledger. “That’s easy to look back on it. We clearly thought that we had some good plays designed, and it just never worked out.”

Fans weren’t the only ones criticizing. WR Santonio Holmes openly questioned why he wasn’t on the field in the first few plays of the game.